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Far. prime minister ruta rightly pointed out yesterday the growing sanctions would bring significant consequences to the russian economy. joining me now, michael mcfall, former u.s. ambassador to the russian federation. he wrote an op-ed in today s new york times entitled confronting putin s russia. and the atlantic s steve clemmons. he s also an msnbc contributor. ambassador mcfall, what is the significance, the real significance to russia of being dropped from the g8? russia s trying to play it as oh, this is no big deal. i think it s the end of a 30-year era. an era that began under president reagan and mikhail gorbachev which was defined by engagement with russian leaders, engagement with western leaders, and integration into these western clubs. gorbachev was invited in the summer of 1991 to be a guest of the g7. it took several years until they ....
Formally joined in 1998. but that s always been the strategy. integration, bringing russia in. that era ended, i think, today. steve clemmons, there s been a fascinating at minimum dual-track approach going on here and possibly more where there s an awful lot of obviously now very tough action being directed toward vladimir putin from what was the g8, now the g7. also from president obama. while john kerry is constantly, it seems, keeping the russian foreign minister as close as possible and staying in as much direct possible contact with him as he can manage. it seems as though kerry has no intention of giving up the conversation with the russians. we re in a position where we have to hedge our bets. i d say that mike mcfaul s article in the new york times today is arguably the most important chronicle of where we ve gone and where we re going. and what ambassador mcfaul lays ....
She gives me chunky before every game. i m very souperstitious. haha, that s a good one! haha! [ male announcer ] campbell s chunky soup. it fills you up right. tonight president obama has succeeded in isolating vladimir putin from the rest of the world s most powerful leaders. the g8 is once again the g-7. in a show of solidarity the leading industrialized nations known as the group of 8, the g8, voted to suspend russia from the g8 during a 90-minute meeting in the netherlands today whereupon the g8 became the g-7 once ....
Again. they operated as the g7 until 1998, when russia was admitted to the group, thereby creating the g8. russia was scheduled to host the next g8 meeting in sochi in june. a g7 declaration released by the white house tonight says, under these circumstances we will not participate in the planned sochi summit. we will suspend our participation in the g8 until russia changes course and the environment comes back to where the g8 is able to have a meaningful discussion. and we ll meet again in g7 format at the same time as planned in june 2014 in brussels to discuss the broad agenda we have together. we have also advised our foreign ministers not to attend the april meeting in moscow. secretary of state john kerry continued his close contact with russian foreign minister sergei ....
Lavrov. they met for an hour in the netherlands today. kerry urged lavrov to deescalate the situation and have discussions with the new ukrainian government. the russian foreign minister issued this statement about the g8 today. the g8 is an informal club with no formal membership. so no one can be expelled from it. its raison d etre was for deliberations between western industrialized countries and russia, but there are other fora for that now. so if our western partners say there is no future for that format, then so be it. we are not clinging to that format. after meeting with the dutch prime minister today, president obama said this europe and america are united in our support of the ukrainian government and the ukrainian people. we re united in imposing a cost on russia for its actions so ....